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Title: Drug Use as a Risk Factor for Premarital Pregnancy in a National Sample of Young Women
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Mensch, Barbara S.
Rosenbaum, Emily
Kandel, Denise B.
Drug Use as a Risk Factor for Premarital Pregnancy in a National Sample of Young Women
Presented: Toronto, Canada, Population Association of America Meetings, May 1990
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Abortion; Adolescent Fertility; Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Contraception; Deviance; Drug Use; Hispanics; Pregnancy and Pregnancy Outcomes; Racial Differences; Religion; Self-Esteem; Self-Reporting; Sexual Activity; Teenagers

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

This study explores the relationship between adolescent drug use and premarital teen pregnancy with data from the 1979-1985 waves of the NLSY. Event history analysis is used to specify the effect of prior drug use on premarital teen pregnancy with controls for seemingly shared personality, lifestyle, and biological factors. Among white young women illicit drug use is the second most important predictor. The risk of premarital teen pregnancy is nearly four times higher for those who have used illicit drugs other than marijuana compared to those with no history of any prior substance involvement. Illicit drug use has no effect on premarital pregnancy for blacks and Hispanics. Alternative explanations may account for the ethnic differences. One possibility is that premarital pregnancy is more normative for nonwhites and therefore less likely to be determined by prior deviant activities. Another possibility is that greater unreliability of self-reports by blacks and Hispanics may alter the observed effects.
Bibliography Citation
Mensch, Barbara S., Emily Rosenbaum and Denise B. Kandel. "Drug Use as a Risk Factor for Premarital Pregnancy in a National Sample of Young Women." Presented: Toronto, Canada, Population Association of America Meetings, May 1990.